The NYT reporter whines, "What I should have said was that he provided his own inaccurate context or embellishment, rather than doing what any good journalist -- any decent person? -- would have, which is to ask what I meant."

Isn't the job of a journalist to say what she means? If she said something she didn't mean, she could always retract it, I suppose. But whining that she was misunderstood when being quoted at length is laughable.

You guys can agree or disagree on non-intervention all day, but this is a separate discussion from the one about the flavor of Malley & Agha's article. Bromwich says something similar, but ascribes to M&A simple "watching and waiting." Wrong. This dynamic duo would alter US foreign policy to punish Islamists wherever they are to be found, no matter whether democratically-elected. Using Burke to justify skepticism of any new democratically-elected government would also call Israel's relatively new form of ethnocracy into question -- or for that matter, a new aggressive Capitalism, should Romney win tomorrow. One can apply this petty little rule as one sees fit. This also ignores the fact that practically any elected government is better than a dictatorship or monarchy. Thus, Morsi is to be congratulated. If he turns out to be a dictator, we can change our minds later.

I had a similar reaction to the article when I read it in print. NYRB has published plenty of criticism of Zionism, such as by Beinart's book (which Mondoweiss covered last May). Do a Google search with "site:nybooks.com zionism" and you'll see how long liberal Zionism and even post-Zionism has been covered in its pages. On the other hand, a similar search on "islam" or "islamism" on the site reveals a less progressive view. Agha and Malley have long been a tag team warning against Islamism. Of course, Agha made a career as a friend of Fatah with no time for Hamas. Malley worked for "Israel's lawyer" on the Camp David accords. Past NYRB articles have included reviews of books on Islam by Bernard Lewis, Salman Rushdie, and numerous pieces on Islam by Malise Ruthven, the colonialist author of the term "Islamofascism," whose veddy British forebears were thrown out of Egypt. So, yes, the slant is notable in a magazine I otherwise enjoy reading.

Eric Yoffie speaks only for himself, or at most the born-again Zionist wing of the Reform movement (it was once fiercely anti-Zionist). But it is also interesting that Yoffie has jilted JStreet and praised AIPAC, so his remarks should be measured by fealty to the talking points that come from the Israeli Foreign Ministry direct to AIPAC and its sister organizations.

Ellis seems to see Chomsky as "prophetic" -- someone willing to risk it all as an outsider -- whereas Carter has "stopped short" of being such an outsider. He characterizes Carter's positions on Israel as "simplistic," and yet I can not help but see Ellis' own views as overly simplistic. In my view, they are both outsiders and pariahs in their own respective worlds. Chomsky's views are more politically radical and comprehensive in looking at how the American Empire works. Carter's are based more on morality. If anything, Carter's sitting in the Oval Office telling Americans they had to make sacrifices for the nation and appealing to their morality was much more "prophetic" than anything Chomsky has ever done. In short, Ellis has a strange notion of "prophetic."

Sometime ago I complained that Marc Ellis, in a particular post, wrote elliptically. This posting of his demonstrates that his strength as a thinker derives from his appreciation of elliptical thought. I take it back.

I would like to see Marc Ellis tackle antisemitism less elliptically. In a world where the government of Israel and virtually all mainstream Jewish organizations conflate Israel's actions with the interests of world Jewry -- going so far as to represent Israel as the only legitimate voice of Jews (all others being demonized as self-haters) -- why should Arab "antisemites" use any more nuance in distinguishing "the Jews" from "the Israelis" than the Israel-defenders themselves?

For the last 64 years American Jews have tried to keep both America and Israel in their hearts and heads, never truly acknowledging the cognitive dissonance between support for a secular democracy on the one hand, and an ethnocracy maintained by martial law on the other. Now they must choose. Both of you are right.

Ellis writes: "Otherwise, after all these years, why would anti-Semitism persist so blatantly in anti-racism movements on the Left?" but doesn't really address his own question properly.

There are many explanations for today's version of anti-Semitism, not the least of which is that much of the world is uneducated and/or deeply attached to conspiracy theories. WorldNet Daily, FOX, etc. in the West certainly flog right-wing conspiracies among "low-information" voters. Similarly and unfortunately, one finds plenty of anti-Semitic and anti-Masonic conspiracy tales in the Arab world. But we must also add -- both worlds have plenty more reliable news sources that most people rely on.

I'm sure I'll hear outraged voices when I say that Israel is responsible for a large amount of contemporary anti-Semitism, but it seems to spike whenever Israel murders a bunch of civilians, starts a war, kidnaps someone, violates international law, or abuses protesters.

But Israel is filled with racists like Avigdor Lieberman, or the majority of the half million settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and elsewhere, who wrap their racism in a religious sandwich. Or consider the former chief Sefardi rabbi Ovadia Josef, who calls for genocide against Palestinians. Or controversial new religious texts defending the murder of the goyim. Or rabbis during the siege of Gaza telling soldiers to slay the Palestinians like Amalek. If Israeli Jews are saying this, and American Jews reflexively (and reliably) defend them, why wouldn't someone see Judaism (at least this warped kind) and Jews in general as pretty awful?

And then there is the fact that anti-Semitism has been completely redefined:link to jcpa.org

It no longer refers to spreading rumors that, say, we drink the blood of little children. Nobody believes this crap anymore. Nobody. But thanks to Israeli efforts like Sharansky's (above), anti-Semitism now is mainly the "denial of a national Jewish homeland" -- in other words, calling for a single, secular, democratic state like we have in the United States.

To get back to Ellis: nobody but Jews cares about the ontological status of Jews. And it would be a good thing for us to accept this as a fact. This is a private thing. No offense to the Amish but, while I wish them well, I don't ponder their ontological status. They just are and, like all of us, add flavor and variety to society.

Not just the Free Gaza movement, but all of us, need to fight against real anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. The fact that now we are seeing both forms of hate combined in groups like the EDL and in Geert Wilders' party (although he cynically gives talks in synagogues) should tell us we need to regard them identically. And this means making a clear distinction between revisionist definitions of anti-Semitism and the real one which, like pornography, you know when you see it.

Again, to quibble with Ellis: whether a miracle happens and a two state solution is again somehow possible; or Israel eventually becomes a secular, democratic state that honors both its Jewish and Palestinian culture and religion; or every Israeli Jew again disperses throughout the Disapora -- Jews will continue to keep Jewish traditions and culture alive. The physical state of Israel is not the same as the idea of biblical Israel. The religious among us would even keep the latter alive.

What? Poor babies! It must have been an unimaginable flashback of Kristallnacht when the brownshirts burned down the Jewish Student Union, the Berkeley Institute for Jewish Law and Israeli Law, the Judaica collection, the building housing the Jewish Studies program, the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art, Hillel, the Chabad Jewish Center, and Tikvah: Students for Israel. With all the vicious antisemites on campus, where could Jewish students cower in fear?

As usual with Israel Firsters, the truth is somewhat different. And if there is any Jewish free speech problem, it's quite the reverse; for example, the Jewish Student Union's attempt to ban lefty Jewish groups, such as J Street U, from Berkeley's large Jewish tent. Here's an excellent piece by one UC Berkeley student:

A few flags should have been raised by the source, NY Post gossip columnist Cindy Adams, and the proximity of this quote to world-rocking updates on Harvey Weinstein, Katie Couric, and Mariah Carey. While this demonstrates again that the mainstream press is filled with morons, liars, and propagandists -- shouldn't we all be a wee bit suspicious of an apple like this before biting into it?

Let's face it: he's not a nice guy and one can almost imagine a perpetual sneer on his preppy, porcine punim. But I see nothing unusual here. Lots of Israelis, like their distant Persian cousins, don't wear ties or pose majestically all the time.

This tatooing story reminds me of an anecdote from Avram Burg's book, The Holocaust is Over, in which Burg asks a friend, Mr. D., why he cut short his business trip to Poland:

I couldn't bear it any more... Everything came back to me... It was cold and snowy... All we saw were birch forests and shrubbery... The wheels and the cars shook... Everything came back to me. The following day, I hopped on a plane and came back.

I don't quite see why those who hate Obama's foreign policy would switch to Romney, unless the lack of difference in that area was eclipsed by more societal concerns (abortion, evolution, Romney being a fellow tea-totaller....) The two parties' foreign policies, despite rhetoric to the contrary, are and will be virtually the same.

A century ago Judaism was not about "vouchers." Since the rise of Zionism, many of my fellow Jews can't seem to tell the difference, constantly conflating Israel with Jewishness, prescribing Birthright tours as the elixir to prevent estrangement of our youth, who are fed a diet of pro-Israel B.S. and endless Holocaust memorialization. No wonder they're estranged. And even the rabbis of the mainstream movements cannot bring themselves to criticize Israel, the "Jewish state" -- as if all of us were in agreement about the aims of this country. At some point we'll all have to ask ourselves if Judaism can survive -- has survived -- Zionism. I don't want to belong to a "voucher-based" religion that believes in real estate deeds more than justice.

Abbas "is not pressing for a vote until after the U.S. presidential election" because everyone knows that the Israel Lobby would go batshit. But, seriously, does Abbas really want to be king of a few bubbles in a giant swiss cheese? Sad to say, but now the focus should be on turning Israel into a democratic, secular state.

I used to think that APN was a group of nice people with their hearts in the right place. Now, when I listen to them clinging to a version of Zionism that depends on the illusion -- no, the lie -- of two states, I find myself being quite impatient with them. They are either being willfully dumb or woefully idealistic -- or (and I hope this is not true) they are, above all, Zionists first, looking for a way to keep one foot in the progressive world while ultimately being boosters of a criminal enterprise. How can Mann, or any person who reads the news and has half a brain, still think the Palestinians are going to get a state? Mr. Mann?

Most of the Palestinians I met there don't make excuses for the PA. They hate the PA, know it's essentially a Vichy sort of government, but have to deal with them. Today's action is just what you'd expect from the PA.

I read Fernandez's book last summer and could not stop laughing. Now any time I read a Friedman piece, I think of a clueless, slightly daft, starting-to-go Alzheimer great uncle. The things that come out of his mouth! Soon it will be drool.

This is the default option that arises in case the new Palestine liberation strategy fails. It stems from the PSG’s appreciation of the difficulties involved in transforming the PA into a PRA (Palestine Resistance Authority) or into an embryonic transitional government for a future independent Palestinian state. If this cannot be achieved, some big and tough questions will need to be answered without hesitation. Can we accept the option of indefinite continuation of the status quo, in which the PA functions as a service-provider without real sovereignty? What if the new strategy with its various components fails? In that case would the PA simply carry on administering the occupied territories and preserving calm and security at no real cost to Israel? And until when? Would it linger on as little more than a local municipal authority?

The other name associated with the production of this movie is a person named Steve Klein, who has been mis-identified as Jewish. However, he calls himself a "born again" in a fluffed-up biography:link to xlibrispublishing.co.uk

I didn't find a Sam Bacile in LinkedIn or on the web anywhere. Laura Posner's article suggests that his Jewish/Israeli identity may be fabricated. Let's see who really did it. It rather smacks of Christian propaganda IMO.

Showing comments 42 - 1Page: 1

Support Mondoweiss’s independent journalism today

Mondoweiss brings you the news that no one else will. Your tax-deductible donation enables us to deliver information, analysis and voices stifled elsewhere. Please give now to maintain and grow this unique resource.